Politicians seeking to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the upcoming election accused him of engaging in disingenuous “spin” on Sunday, after he appeared to indicate his next government would take steps to conscript ultra-Orthodox men, despite recently passing a series of laws aimed at preventing enforcement against Haredi draft evaders.

“Netanyahu thinks the serving public is dumb” and his comments walking back recent legislative efforts are “pathetic spin,” declared former prime minister Naftali Bennett in a statement.

“After four years of personally preventing the recruitment of Haredim, ignoring the warnings of the chief of staff and the cries of the reservists who asked for reinforcements, Netanyahu thinks that this time the people of Israel will believe him,” Bennett said, adding that the premier “knows that he will not be able to recruit even one Haredi” because Aryeh Deri, the chairman of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, “won’t let him.”

Tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox men aged 18 to 24 are currently eligible for military service but have ignored conscription orders, despite manpower shortages in the army and widespread anger among the general population over an unequal sharing of the burden of defending the country.

Last month, despite opposition by Knesset legal advisers, the attorney general and the Israel Defense Forces, lawmakers voted 58-54 to pass a coalition-backed law temporarily banning the arrest and prosecution of ultra-Orthodox men evading military service, thereby legitimizing continued mass Haredi non-enlistment for at least the next seven months. The law also froze criminal proceedings already in place against current Haredi draft dodgers.

Implementation of the law was quickly frozen by the High Court, with a decision pending on whether to strike it down entirely. Coalition politicians called on the government to disobey the court.

According to leaks published in the Hebrew press, which the Haaretz daily attributed to Netanyahu’s Likud party, the prime minister admitted during a recent discussion that the controversial law did not serve its purpose and the policy will not continue in the next government, should he win the upcoming election.

The law “was........

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